Gérard Depardieu has been discovered responsible of sexually assaulting two ladies throughout a movie shoot in 2021 and given an 18-month suspended jail sentence.
Depardieu, France’s greatest movie star who has made greater than 200 movies and TV collection, is the highest-profile determine within the French movie trade to be convicted of sexual assault for the reason that #MeToo motion. His title will probably be added to the intercourse offender register in France, the decide dominated.
The 76-year-old, who was not in court docket for the decision, was convicted of sexually assaulting a 54-year-old set dresser and a 34-year-old assistant director in the course of the capturing of the function movie Les Volets Verts (The Inexperienced Shutters) in Paris in September 2021. His lawyer, Jérémie Assous, stated he would attraction towards the decision.
The set dresser, named within the media as Amélie, stated outdoors court docket: “For me, this is a victory. Justice has been done.”
Carine Durrieu Diebolt, Amélie’s lawyer, stated: “I hope this is the end of impunity for cinema artists. I’ve heard some actors recently still supporting Depardieu. Now with this verdict, no one can say Gérard Depardieu is not a sexual predator, and that’s very important. Today, on the first day of the Cannes film festival, I want the cinema world to think of the victims of Gérard Depardieu, and to speak of those victims.”
Earlier than the decision, the French actor Brigitte Bardot backed Depardieu publicly, defending what she referred to as “talented people who grab a girl’s bottom”.
The court docket heard that Depardieu trapped the set decorator, Amélie, between his legs on the movie set and grabbed her buttocks, pubis and chest. She stated he trapped her with power, used obscene language and needed to be pulled off her.
Depardieu focused Amélie on set when she was making cellphone calls to trace down parasols for the movie. He allegedly stated: “Come and touch my big parasol. I’ll stick it in your pussy.”
Amélie instructed the court docket that he then grabbed her hips, pulled her in direction of him and trapped her between his thighs with nice power, and grabbed her physique, together with her pubis, waist and chest.
“That’s where I understood the strength he had, he held me very, very hard,” she stated. “I remember his eyes, I saw this big face, red eyes, very angry, very agitated. And he was saying: ‘Come touch my big parasol,’ with a crazy look. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
She stated: “That fear that I felt – what stands out for me is not his sexual desire but his savagery. It was the fact that he knew I was afraid – I saw his eyes light up with a kind of pleasure in making someone afraid. I remember that savagery. He really terrified me, and that amused him.”
Depardieu was additionally convicted of sexually assaulting an assistant director on the identical movie, touching her breasts or buttocks on three separate events. The lady, who was not named within the media, was tasked with accompanying Depardieu from his dressing room on to the set in the course of the filming. She stated the assaults left her “petrified”.
The assistant director instructed the court docket {that a} first sexual assault occurred throughout an evening shoot in Paris, when she discovered herself alone with Depardieu on the finish of a brief street the place his dressing room was positioned as they walked in direction of an out of doors set.
She stated the second assault occurred at a later date on a set inside a Paris residence, the place Depardieu blocked her towards a door and put his two palms on her breasts. She instructed the court docket: “I said no. I was scared.”
She stated that on a 3rd event Depardieu put his hand on her buttocks and she or he once more stated: “No.”
The assistant director instructed the court docket that Depardieu “talked about sex all day on set, constantly talking of ‘pussy’ to everyone”.
Depardieu didn’t attend the studying of the decision in court docket. His whereabouts weren’t instantly clear. Final month, he was working within the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores on a brand new movie directed by his pal, the actor Fanny Ardant, who testified in court docket in help of him.
Depardieu denied sexual assault. He instructed the trial that the media had used allegations towards him to wreck his fame. He attacked the #MeToo motion in addition to ladies who had held protest placards outdoors a live performance tour he was on on the time of the allegations. “This movement is going to become a terror,” he stated.
Depardieu’s trial was seen as a turning level for the French movie trade, which has been accused of being sluggish – even resistant – to taking ladies’s claims of abuse significantly.
A damning parliamentary report by French politicians concluded final month that sexual violence and sexual harassment remained “endemic” in France’s leisure trade and that ladies and kids had been nonetheless being routinely preyed on.
The Paris prosecutor’s workplace has requested Depardieu face an additional trial for rape and sexual assault in a separate case introduced by the actor Charlotte Arnould, however no date has been set.
In an open letter to Le Figaro in 2023, Depardieu denied the allegations, saying any encounter with Arnould had been consensual.
